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CENTRAL MILLS. 



with his character ; and consequently the extreme impro- 

 bability of their succeeding as cultivators of the soil. I 

 contend then, that the British planter cannot compete in 

 an English market with the slave owner : that this ina- 

 bility extends equally to the production of all articles of 

 export ; and that where the white proprietor has failed, the 

 negro will not succeed, more especially if, deprived of the 

 instruction and example of Europeans, by their gradual 

 abandonment of the island, he is left to retrograde, as there 

 is but little doubt that he will do, into his pristine condi- 

 tion of African barbarism." 



Whether the manufacturing department on a sugar 

 plantation requires " more skill and power of combination 

 than the negroes possess," is a question that I need not 

 stop to discuss. It is enough to answer, that full nine- 

 tenths of the sugar produced here and in the United States 

 are manufactured by negroes, with such skill and power of 

 combination. I may add, that a large number of very 

 extensive cotton mills are in successful operation in the 

 States of Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee, in which all 

 the operatives are slaves. 



But the primary question is, whether the division of 

 labor which I have proposed, is practicable. Mr. Stanley 

 says not ; that the manufacturing process " cannot be car- 

 ried on separately from the other ; for the canes, if not 

 taken at once to the mill are spoilt." " For this reason," 

 he adds, " small farming is out of the question " 



